Moving Water (14 page)

Not sure I relished that, I prodded, “How . . . why—”

“Did I say he was murdered? He was. Killed by raiders at Ker Stiriand's gate. He made a tactical error. Sent his troops after raiders across the range, and another lot stormed his citadel. Why were the Heagians to blame?” I sensed an abridgement. “Because he believed in Math, he tried to protect others before himself. And Th'Iahn was the bringer of Math.”

“Oh.” More of that awesome accepted responsibility. “But why should I look like a—a Stiriand?”

“Coincidence, perhaps.” His manner told me he was withholding something. But before I could ask, he answered the rest in his old style.

“You didn't remember bitter-bark because Moriana stopped you. More abuse of the Well. And for the same reason Fengthira couldn't tell you till you asked. There's a virtual Ruanbraxe over Assharral. We have to bawl to hear each other, and she had to bawl harder for you.” His eyes crinkled. “And she was a little—er—anxious. Which is why she deafened the whole town. You didn't actually use Lathare. She was reading your thoughts. On stand-by, so to speak.” He grinned. “If your dignity's sore at being called a dolt, be easy. She's called me a lot worse.”

For the first time I grew curious about the being herself. “What is she like, this Fengthira?”

“Sounds short-tempered and has the patience of sand. Prefers animals to men, because men's bungles tempt her too much. I know how she feels. That's why she lives in Hethria.”

“And what does she look like?”

“Gray eyes. Gray hair. Face. . . .” He considered something and abandoned it. “Oh,” he said blandly. “If you meet her, you'll know.”

He was a good convalescent. “Practice,” he told me. “I was hot-headed before, and I had a vile time paying for hotheadedness.” Nor did the continued confinement fret him. He spent hours absorbed in farsight, to confound me with remarks on parts of Zyphryr Coryan I never knew existed, let alone the rest of Assharral. Its races gave him unending delight. “All those peoples under the one roof.” When I thought uneasily of the future, he just quirked a brow. “Strategic offense, tactical defense. I'm here. She has to attack. All I need do is wait.”

She did not make him wait for long.

* * * * *

It was a high day, so the Guard turned out to help control the temple crowds. Having seen off the first reliefs I had set out to check the guard change at Ker Morrya when the court met me in the street.

They came with the usual fanfaronade, beadles with silver staves to clear the way, then the ensign-bearers' huge black silk pennons almost sweeping the stones, the censers who swung perfumed smoke from silver bowls, the road-sweepers, the court-jesters, then the advance guard tricked out in their ridiculous regalia and sporting badges of office more ridiculous still. Warden of the Perfume. Keeper of the Soaps. Scullion-commander. Bath-master. Jewel-holder. Lord of the Plate. Ruler of the Cups. I noted a dull corselet among the puff-chested guards, rainbow heads amid the Lady's escort of notables, Chamberlain, Mistress of the Maids, Steward in Chief, Holder of the Chair, Carver, First below the Throne. I saluted as the Lady herself approached.

She was in red again, a superb wine red in some fluent cloth that made a second skin down to her hips, then flared into a monstrous plume of train that needed six small pages to keep it from the dust. The thillians on her wrist and throat sparked brilliantly, but they were dull to the gold meteors in her eyes, and warm to the malice in her bell-cool voice.

“How timely, Captain.” She was smiling. “Now you can show off your handiwork.”

My throat dried. Dumbly I fell in as that curved finger bade, behind the potentates. Our destination I already knew.

The court made outcry at the dark, the tunnels, the filth and wet. There was much wielding of scent balls and shielding of sleeves and raising of skirts and shrieks at mention of rats. There was more surreptitious simpering and whispered mockery when they had crowded into the vault and formed a ring at a safe distance behind the braziers.

Beryx must have been very far away indeed. He had risen, but when the whole court had deployed and the Lady herself swayed into the forefront opposite him, his eyes were still quiescent, wells of tourmaline, bent on something far removed from her.

Her own eyes widened, slowly, black as the vault's lightless upper dark. A tiny smile strung her lips. In that limpid voice she remarked, “Manners to match your palace, I see.”

The court giggled. Beryx's eyes woke. Then he inclined his head. A royal courtesy, unburlesqued. Throwing the onus for chains, wet and rats straight back on her.

“And quite recovered too.”

He did not accept the false sacrifice and retort, No thanks to you! He did not poker up. He grinned openly and bypassed the attack with one quicksilver thrust. “This audience will have to hear what you mean.”

Her eyes gave a tiny flare. Cooled. She turned to the court.

“This,” she cooed, “is an aedr. A sort of magician. They have great powers.” One graceful hand swept the vault. “As you can see.” The court hurried to laugh. “You'll have to excuse its looking rather like a . . . a . . .”— she studied Beryx with elaborate distaste—“sort of ragamuffin. Or is it a scarecrow?” Callissa had replaced his ruined clothes with a calico gown sewn up on him. Certainly, it was not elegant. “Perhaps a bear. Yes, I think it might be a tree-bear. It looks as if it should go on all fours. Only, of course, it doesn't have four legs.” The court thought this hilarious. “And it's rather ugly too. Not—quite—one's taste in a pet, hmm, Klyra dear?”

This was a creature at her elbow, got up in strips of gold and ruby tinsel that revealed fishing net hose, and a headdress like a fairground guy. It tittered. I felt a hot ball of rage in my throat. After one swift glance at Beryx, the Lady pursued her assault.

“It comes from a place called Everran. Somewhere in the west. A little smaller than Axaira, I believe, and much more primitive. But we must allow for vulgarity over there. And once . . . once . . .”—the tone said, Would you believe it?—“it called itself a—king.”

But for face-paint the court would have laughed itself to tears. Those who could trust the costume-seams slapped their thighs, others held each other or their own ribs. The Lady's silver peal overrode it all.

“And,” she called as they subsided, “it couldn't even keep its little kingdom. You see, it's barren, my dears.”

My teeth snapped together. I looked at Beryx, in dread.

He was leaning on the wall. He had folded his arms. I looked, and looked again, and then rubbed my eyes. For his eyes were dancing with what I incredulously realized was enjoyment, and his mouth had curved, a grin that widened as I looked.

“So,” the Lady proceeded, “it was expelled by a dragon. And it fled to Hethria. Into dudgeon, if not dungeon, you might say.”

My mouth opened in ungovernable rage. You lying bitch, I wanted to howl, you know, you know he killed the thing! My breath went in and a general's bawl chopped it in my throat.

I fairly shot to attention. he rasped. I had just recognized mindspeech when the Lady began again.

“Hethria being a desert, it was quite apt. Barren to barren, you see.” They did. “It even found a mate. But our gethel grew restless. Though not for trees. It came to Assharral. It wanted—listen my dears—it wanted to see the sea!”

This time several of the more advanced sycophants had to be held off the floor. One actually rolled on it, to the great detriment of his balloon-shaped cloth-of-gold breeks.

“And when it arrived. . . .” The Lady elaborately wiped a tear from one perfect cheek. “Dears, do wait a moment, you haven't heard the cream. When it arrived, do you know what it did? It fell in love—no, only wait a moment! It fell in love . . . give me the fan, Klyra. . . . And it wanted to marry—you'll never imagine—It wanted to marry—me!”

I hoped those in need of smelling salts would choke on them. I memorized several faces for an alley some dark night. I solaced myself by noting how like a zoo they looked. A bedlamite, boot-licking zoo. I acknowledged, with chagrin, the masterly way she had converted a mortal insult to a prime weapon of offense. Do something! I raged at Beryx. Say something! Finally, with shame and reluctance, I looked at him.

The grin had fairly split his face. He might have been handed a whole battle on a plate. When the uproar sank to speaking level he said with quite fiendish glee, “Do go on . . . dear.”

For one glorious moment I thought she would lose control. A red spot rose on each cheek, furnaces burnt in her eyes. Then she turned back to the hiccupping crowd.

“So I thought this—exhibit—might amuse you a little. Being demented, it has to be chained up, but it could still be quite diverting. Come, Thephor, don't you know how to bait a bear?”

Thephor was the favorite. In scarlet today, with a preposterous feathered hat, he had kept his ox-goad stave. He smiled gaily at the Lady, at a total loss. With honeyed venom, she smiled back.

“I'm sure,” she cooed, “you'd all like to see a magician's powers?”

This was much more to Thephor's taste. He clapped as enthusiastically as the rest. “Don't worry, darling,” she assured him. “It can't hurt you, I've seen to that. Why don't you wake it up?”

My spine went cold. Remembering that catapulted coal, I wondered, Does she know what she's fooling with?

Thephor had entire faith in her. He minced past the braziers, hove his staff up two-handed, and made to prod with it.

Beryx did not move. But the staff head veered aside and grated down the wall by his left hip.

The crowd laughed. A couple jeered the bad aim. Thephor tried again. This time it was a distinct thrust, impelled by most of his scanty muscle, I should think. The staff end shot up past Beryx's motionless face, described a slow circle, and dropped to earth with Thephor clinging as if it were too heavy for him to the middle of the haft.

Into the hiatus came the Lady's tinkling laugh. “Dear me, Thephor!”

Thephor had lost his smile. He re-hefted his weapon. This time he swung it cudgel-wise, sidelong at Beryx's chest.

The staff twisted from his hands, described a graceful parabola over the audience and disappeared into the dark. From somewhere down the vault came a heavy, thudding crash.

Beryx looked at his assailant. His eyes were not roused. After A'sparre, I had seen that. There was just a crystal whitening, an intimation of power roused.

Then it became something like pity. He said, “Take someone your own weight, Thephor.”

Thephor half-backed, glancing round. The Lady's eye made me pity him too. In the pause the woman Klyra gave a shrill laugh, then pulled the gilded scent-ball from her wrist.

Wonderfully for a woman, the throw would have been straight. But six inches from Beryx's face it rebounded, sailed lazily back to Klyra, turned a loop and vanished with diabolical accuracy between her amply exposed breasts.

He burst out laughing at her leap. The court laughed too, but with malice. A moment later missiles sailed from every side, scent-balls, hand-mirrors, fans, bracelets, smelling salt phials, ivory engagement books, the kind of play that verges on blood-sport and needs a feather to tip the scales.

Beryx's eyes shot a salvo of white flashes so fast they seemed continuous. The missiles sprayed away from him, not back to the thrower now, they were too thick for that. The crowd laughed, the Lady's smile stopped my breath. The bombardment dwindled. In the lull Beryx gazed blandly back at her, and cocked a brow.

“Did you ever,” she cooed, “try juggling for your bread?”

He gave her a dazzling smile. Then he said in absolute earnest, “Moriana, give it up.”

“You've forgotten your audience.”

“It's the last thing I'd forget. Look at them. You—Thephor—heir to Climbros' first house. If you were one of my nobles you'd be governor of the province now. Instead you're a bed-boy headed for the chopping block. You—Klyra—Mistress of the Wardrobe, aren't you? Wife to the biggest cattle-lord in Darrior, and you wouldn't know a stud bull if it kicked you in the face. You—Femos—your flocks graze half Kemrestan. What's your wool worth? All you can tally is the Cups. You—Kreo—your land marches with Phaxia. Have you seen one border fort? When the raiders cross you're squabbling with the Jewel-keeper over privy precedence and paid soldiers die to save your loot. You—Ashon—the biggest merchant bank in Assharral. You'd be my Treasurer, not keeping my soaps. You—Hazis—own half the merchant fleet. Ever inspected your books? You—any of you—do you manage your estates? Lead your army? Govern your provinces? Guide Assharral? No. Do you know why?”

His eyes whipped round them. For one moment I saw awareness of his point, vision of what they should have been. Then, from the right horn of the circle, commanded or voluntarily, someone hurled a chunk of coal.

Whoever it was had a good eye and hate to power his arm. It took Beryx under the ear with a sickening thud. He staggered, his head jerked, and instantly the whole court was screaming like a pack of foxhounds on the scent of blood.